The Sao Paulo Forum, Latin America and the crisis in the Brazilian left wing

Marco Aurelio Garcia, high level international advisor of president Lula gives his support to the "great destabilizations" created by the so called "social movements" which will serve to "break hegemonies" and supposedly "expand" democracy in the continent; and eulogies "armed struggles" which would have contributed for the democratization in different countries

1.

The Sao Paulo Forum (FSP), a coalition of communist, socialist and left-wing parties of the continent celebrated 15 years of existence holding their 12th meeting (July 1-4, Sao Paulo, Brazil) with representatives of political parties and "social movements" of 16 Latin American countries. The first meeting of the FSP took place in July, 1990, also in Sao Paulo and as a request from Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro, concerned with the devastating effects the dismantling of the Soviet empire was having on the Latin American left wings and the consequent loss of prestige of the communist "paradigms" and "utopias".

2.

What until a couple of days prior to the last meeting of the FSP was hoped to be a celebration – due to the fact that many of the associated parties had reached government in important countries in the region – has been tarnished by the credibility crisis swooped down on the Labor’s Party (PT), host of the event. The accusations of corruption against the government, which had always pretended having among its main flags to combat corruption hastened the fall of the Minister Civilian Chief of Staff, José Dirceu, former guerilla trained in Cuba, right arm of President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva and close friend of the dictator Castro.

The 350 FSP participant delegates no could not hide the anxiety with the eventual results of the denunciations that are being investigated in the Brazilian Congress and the damage the results of it might impact on the myth of incorruptibility of the left-wing at a Latin-American level. Said anxiety is explainable if we consider that during the rest of 2005 and 2006 we are going to have not less that 7 national elections, in which the left-wing parties of Brazil and Chile intend to remain in power, besides trying to reach it electronically in Mexico, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru and even Colombia, in case the courts hamper the possibility of reelection of the current president.

3.

From a strategic point o f view, the most relevant speech of the 4 days was certainly the one lectured by Professor Marco Aurelio Garcia, Chef Advisor of Foreign Policy of President Lula, later eulogized by the latter when appeared in one of the sessions of the FSP, presenting him as the mentor and driver of the FSP. During the last years has worked hard to expand the "lulist" neo-imperialism in Latin America, traveling around the region and working as mediator in countries as Venezuela and Bolivia, during lately institutional crisis.

Professor Garcia, while giving examples of what he called as current "favorable situation" for the continental left wings stressed the burst of the so called "social movements" as "new players" of the political scenery. He eulogized the "high spirits" of the latter, and recognized that he saw as "positive" the "great destabilizations" triggered by these "new players" during the last years in countries as Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, etc.

May be, realizing the tough terrain he was entering, Garcia tried to qualify his comments clarifying that it seemed necessary to "perform all actions within the democratic experience structure", and that "democracy cannot live without the State of Law". However, immediately after, erasing with the left hand what he wrote with the right hand, said that it is also necessary to consider that the "State of Law cannot turn a straitjacket against democracy" and that that was the reason he saw the "destabilizations" as an "expansion of democracy", as well as a tool to "break hegemonies".

4.

But neither in the ideology nor in strategies or ways to articulate of a significant part of those "social movements" is democratic –specially the more active, which are precisely those that lead the "high spirit" eulogized by Garcia- that not only have overthrown governments in Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador but also threat to dismantle and launch into social chaos whole regions in the continent. As already proved with documental evidence, the dominant ideology among the "social movements" is a sui generis mixture of communism, and indigenism, and use "liliputian" publicity strategies of apparent "spontaneity", derived from the World’s Forum, from which the Sao Paulo Forum is a tributary and allied. Not in vain the debate guide document for this 12th FSP meeting mentions in a praising way the "kinds of society and/or civilization" "communal" and "Andean" of the "native people", in a history milestone in which, according to FSP, the "euro-centralism is in the throes of death".

The high advisor of president Lula had the merit to point out the top of the iceberg hiding under the FSP and its current plans: if the institutional structure the preach to praise causes them problems, then, the "social movements" that they remotely control, will take care of widening it by whatever means.

In a historic description of the revolutionary struggles in the continent, Garcia eulogized the Marxist guerilla movements of Central America, stating that we should "take our hat off" to the cases of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, countries where today democracy is supposed to exist as a "result of the great struggles, even armed ones". As if the goals of said movements would had been democracy and not communism, not having provoked tens of thousands of deaths, with a "cruel, bloody and irresponsible participation" in the civil wars of those countries, as coached to the dictator Castro former president of El Salvador, Francisco Flores, during the closure ceremony of the Iberic American Summit in Panama, in 2000, before the television cameras of the whole world.

At the end, after all those comments, Marco Aurelio Garcia tried to minimize the accusations against the FSP as being a kind of Latin-American "evil axis". Notwithstanding, his audacious interpretation of the role of the "social movements" in the transformation of the democracy and the State of Law, and his support to the Marxist guerillas, render topicality with grounded arguments to the referred accusations.

5.

In this same way, it is important to stress the fundamental role communist Cuba continues to play in said institutional organization, which can be found in the referred guide document for this 12th meeting of the FSP; in speeches of delegates of different countries as Representative Carlos Baraibar, the governor from the Frente Amplio party, from Uruguay and former Salvador guerilla Jorge Shafik Handal, current leader of the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (FMLN); as well as various paragraphs of the final declaration. Said influence is currently less ostensive, certainly due to strategic reasons among which escape from the "evil axle" shadow that follows the FSP. At the same time, it is necessary to point out the growing role of president Chávez, from Venezuela.

6.

It is necessary to inquire up to what degree the green light given to the "great destabilizations" and to the "high spirit" of the so called "social movements" by the high advisor of the Brazilian president and éminence grise of the FSP, will impact in the Brazilian public in the future. The question makes sense if we consider that in the current Brazilian situation, the precisely most left-winged sector of the PT, more linked to the revolutionary "social movements" and to the so called "left-wing Catholics"- have not been involved with in the denounces, which up to the moment have only affected a stream within the party considered more "gradualist". It is opportune to remember that Fray Betto, close fiend of president Lula and one of the leaders of the "left-wing Catholics" in Brazil, surprisingly left the government January this year. ¿Has he done it consciously? The future shall give us an answer to our doubts.

7.

It calls our attention that the big Brazilian media that sent dozens of journalists to the event did not publish any stories or comments on those significant ideological issues discussed in the FSP, which are the most important and fundamental, just covering issues related to the corruption denunciations.

8.

We are concerned with the fact that the Sao Paulo Forum and the World Forum, which are two sides of the same coin, are being accepted by various countries in the region. Thus, despite the hard stroke the governing left is having in Brazil, the strategic plans derived from the FSP constitute a problem nobody really interested in the future of the continent can scorn.

Regrettably, the important guiding document for the discussion of the 12th meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum is not on the Sao Paulo Forum at http://www.forosaopaulo.org, and we only have one printed hardcopy distributed during the event.